Coverage planning for digital terrestrial television

A large number of technical, commercial and regulatory factors will affect the planning of networks for digital terrestrial television. The purpose of this paper is to: discuss the factors which may affect the choice of frequency planning methods; identify and consider the system parameters which are relevant to coverage; identify the areas of uncertainty which can be resolved with field tests. To do this different planning methods are identified and the advantages and disadvantages of each approach are explored. Predictions of the coverage that can be obtained with each method are given based on planning studies for the United Kingdom. The various planning and system parameters and assumptions are also reviewed with examples that demonstrate the importance of some of them on coverage. Finally, results of initial field tests, which were targeted to address some of the most critical uncertainties, are provided.